


Twenty-One Orange Tee-Shirts

by iamisaac



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:45:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5234621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamisaac/pseuds/iamisaac





	Twenty-One Orange Tee-Shirts

“I'll miss you.”

Neville wasn't sure why the words had surprised him so much. Luna and he had lived together since they finished Hogwarts; had shared a bed for the past three months. But there had always been a sense of impermanence, a sense that they were just marking time until Luna went abroad, Neville took up his herbology secondment at Geerham's Wizard College. 

They'd hugged, as Luna packed her bags and got ready to DisApparate. They'd kissed (and kisses with Luna were always incredible). And then there had been that one final moment. Luna had looked at Neville – just looked – for the longest time, and then kissed his forehead gently. Then she'd said it - “I'll miss you” - and before he could reply, she was gone.

And the flat was empty. Not of things – Luna hadn't taken all that much in the way of possessions: she wouldn't have anywhere to put them where she was going, but she also wasn't that interested. Material things had never meant much to her, unlike to Neville, who found them comforting: a sense of permanence; something (literally) to hang on to when everything else (everyone else) had gone. Like now, when the flat was empty because it wasn't filled with Luna's personality and the knowledge that Neville might come across anything at any moment – a down and out who had been invited in for a cup of hot chocolate by Luna; a room full of homing pigeons as Luna practised a certain spell with amusing inaccuracy; twenty-one orange tee-shirts because Luna had seen them on sale in a Muggle shop and had been impressed by the “Buy two, get one free” offer. (Nothing Neville could say had made Luna acknowledge that buying twenty-one tee-shirts when she didn't actually even want one was NOT a bargain. Both of them had worn practically nothing but orange tee-shirts since: Luna had DisApparated in one only that morning.)

Maybe that was it. Neville had sometimes thought that Luna saw people in the same way as possessions: quite pleasant to have around, but not too much of a disaster if they weren't there. Although she was anything but cold-hearted, she always seemed – detached. When she was with you, she gave everything of herself and held back nothing, but Neville had expected her to leave without even a glance back. Last night, as they lay entwined in the bed, Neville had said, “I wish you weren't going;” and Luna had held him even closer, but said no reciprocal words of regret. Now, as Neville walked back into their bedroom, to fling himself moodily on the bed, he found that Luna hadn't just said some last words, she'd written some, too.

_I'll be back, Neville. I promise. I'll miss you._

Then a big big big space, an enormous breadth of white untouched paper, and three further words scrawled in the tiniest writing in the bottom corner.  
 _  
I love you._


End file.
